CiVGotm Ideas Thread

[Knowtalent]

Good evening folks,
With the retirement of HammerRabbi, there will be a reduction of GotMs to 1 per month. The questions for you guys and gals.
Should I sprinkle in some games from the scenarios?
Should I keep moving thru the difficulty levels sequentially?
Should I do more lower level games and perhaps do one Immortal/Deity level every 4 months?
Would point based objectives be something to add in?
Should policy restrictions be the norm rather than the exception?

 

[golem]

My opinion:
Should I sprinkle in some games from the scenarios? YES
Should I keep moving thru the difficulty levels sequentially? YES
Should I do more lower level games and perhaps do one Immortal/Deity level every 4 months? NO
Would point based objectives be something to add in? NO
Should policy restrictions be the norm rather than the exception? YES

I would suggest to start 1st day of the month - to have it simple.

 

[socralynnek]

Regarding difficulty levels: I am not good at the highest ones, I'd be happy if there are not too many of them (on the other hand, the ones training longer than I do surely also need a challenge)

 

[beetle]

Thanks for you work on the GoTM Knowtalent.

Should I sprinkle in some games from the scenarios?

Sure.

Should I keep moving thru the difficulty levels sequentially?

Okay, but I think you should do a survey or ask a question about what is the lowest level that people actually are challenged by. I still do not understand the point of the Prince games. The assertion is that people are at all levels, and that new players can be competitive (or at least learn) from the lower levels. But that last bit is not true. The games are scored, and veterans are not precluded from playing the easy games. So new players are not competitive, and the veterans’ play style is such that they have no teaching utility to new players. My own opinion is that GoTM should pick a difficulty level for several many games in a row, and see how that works for folks.

Should I do more lower level games and perhaps do one Immortal/Deity level every 4 months?

No. If anything, I think the rotation should have more difficult games and fewer lower level games.

Would point based objectives be something to add in?

We had that for the Community Deity Game series and I think it added quite a bit to the enjoyment. The point based objectives mostly were around making use of UU/UB/UA. I am not sure how you could work those into the current GoTM reward system.

Should policy restrictions be the norm rather than the exception?

Yes. After all this time, I still do not think optimum Liberty play has been figured out!

 

[joncnunn]

Should I sprinkle in some games from the scenarios?

I wasn't much impressed with the scenarios in Civ V; the Polynesia one was okay for one run thru, but didn't have much replay value.
Several of the others are either on Huge map (too time consuming) or otherwise too tedious due to combo of always war with every single civ and all AIs preferring to gang up on the human than fighting each other.

Now if Firaxis had instead ported the ones from Civ III Conquests and continued to use the C3C ruleset while replacing with a hex map, that would have been awesome.

Should I keep moving thru the difficulty levels sequentially?

That is generally a good idea.

Should I do more lower level games and perhaps do one Immortal/Deity level every 4 months?

For myself, I only play the ones that are most interesting for me (in part I often end up taking more than the allowed time to finish *) For me, King would only be interesting if there's either some policy restriction or bad starting terrain.

Would point based objectives be something to add in?

Those tend to be things I'm uninterested in. The scoring system is really bad in Civ V.

Should policy restrictions be the norm rather than the exception?

Very level dependent: They function best at King and Emperor levels (in the later case if the starting location is good and also at that e). At Prince there could be a requirement to roll virtual dice to determine the next social policy to pick and it would still be too easy.
Meanwhile overcoming AI advantages on Deity is hard enough as is.

I do think though that policy inclusions should make some sense based on the starting terrain. e.g. The start ought to be coastal if there's a requirement to fill Exploration tree; Rationalism is so much ahead of everything else it's enough of a handicap as is filling a second tree in addition to or in lieu of Rationalism without it being potentially useless. (A Rationalism exclusion would have been better than an Exploration requirement in that case.)

Example: What I'd expect to see if there's a requirement to fill Honor : Raging Barbs on and map is NOT large island / tiny island / other island start. Bonus thematic points if on something with a lot in inhabitable land terrain such as Ice Age.

* Or sometimes as is currently, I don't start playing a given GOTM until long after submissions closed; (I started playing GOTM #131 three weeks ago and am currently in the Atomic era)

What drew my eye to that one was it being Babylon with a natural science victory but an OCC to compensate.

 

[aafritz17]

Thanks for you work on the GoTM Knowtalent.

What he said, for sure...

I can quickly think of 3 reasons that I enjoy the GotM;
1 Comradeship - Although I too often don't have/take time to respond, I thoroughly enjoy participating in this forum.
2 Variety - I would never choose some of the game restrictions - or leaders, for that matter - that get put into some of the GotMs. For example, later era starts; never choose 'em for a personal game. Yet, like the last India game, they can be very fun and interesting.
3 Accountability - I find it very easy to bail on my own games, and sometimes for the mildest of reasons. But, to participate in GotM, I am forced to finish what I started. I get satisfaction from powering through a game that I am not liking, but that I want to finish BECAUSE I'm part of a community.

So, given these "flavors", here are my thoughts;

Scenarios:
I have finished 1 of the scenarios, started a couple of others. They don't "draw" me like just starting a standard game. So if you choose to do some of them - I guess it would fulfill all 3 of my reasons.

Difficulty (Either sequential, or emphasizing lower levels):

Regarding difficulty levels: I am not good at the highest ones, I'd be happy if there are not too many of them (on the other hand, the ones training longer than I do surely also need a challenge)

My own opinion is that GoTM should pick a difficulty level for several many games in a row, and see how that works for folks.

I can win over 50% of my Immortal games, but have not yet scored my first Deity win. I have probably quit some Deity games that, had I persevered, I could have won. But when I started GotM I was only King-competent. I would think more of those mid-levels (King, Emperor) would be appreciated by (and helpful to) much of this community, but some of the games should be at Immortal/Deity. Beetle's idea is interesting, totally not sure what I think of it. But I agree that it would certainly indicate how much demand there is for each higher level.
(And I'm betting my first Deity win will be a GotM...)

Point Based Objectives, and Policy Restrictions:

I would suggest to start 1st day of the month - to have it simple.

I am all for "simpler is better". BoM is certainly simply, so probably a good idea. I have no objection to a Score Objective nor to Policy Restrictions, unless they unnecessarily complicate things. I'd say those are pretty much your call.

One thought about policy restrictions - if/when you add these, they should be for a reason. The Atomic Era start for the last game was that way. You articulated why you implemented it, and it made sense ("play him in traditional fashion"). A restriction like "England, so you must complete Exploration" makes sense, where "domination required, but you must complete Aesthetics" doesn't. No worries, though; can't remember you ever implementing something that didn't make sense anyway.

 

[aafritz17]

B(eginning) o(f) M(onth). Sorry, I'm one of those darn auditor/accountant types...

 

[aafritz17]

... (And I'm betting my first Deity win will be a GotM...)

No, it won't. See my post in the General Discussion forum.

 

[poxpower]

The scenarios are confusing to me haha pass on that.
But for the other stuff, if there's enough people interested, you can show me how to set up a GOTM and I'd be down to run one too.

All difficulties are fine by me ( but no culture wins for anything under immortal, unless you ban sacred sites ). However when you get to king and under, there should be some kind of interesting twist to the game, like OCC or a super garbage start or weird win condition.

I also hate barbs/raging barbs.
Don't really play anything but ancient era starts.

Policy restrictions are a great idea. Like force Piety / Exploration / Autocracy game or something lol.

 

[jrwh]

I'd love to see the advanced era starts get toned back a bit. They're cool every once in awhile but they lose appeal when they happen so often.

Personally I enjoy Domination and Science victories far more than the others.

I think the path to making GotM as interesting and unique as possible is via the maps as opposed to the game settings. It seems like most people (myself included) do a practice game or more to get a general plan together for these games. That's cool and all, but with interesting map features you can really make people adapt their game and adjust on the fly. For example, I remember an India domination game awhile ago where the map was divided into quarters by water. The only way off our starting quarter was through two city states surrounded by mountains. I had planned to just roll the whole map over with War Elephants, but it took time, happiness, and other resources to capture those CS and create a military path to the rest of the civs. I thought it was really cool that I had to come up with new ideas instead of following some generic formula to victory.

By the way, I know there have been some changes; when will GotM be released from now on?

 

[Knowtalent]

I'd love to see the advanced era starts get toned back a bit. They're cool every once in awhile but they lose appeal when they happen so often.

Personally I enjoy Domination and Science victories far more than the others.

I think the path to making GotM as interesting and unique as possible is via the maps as opposed to the game settings. It seems like most people (myself included) do a practice game or more to get a general plan together for these games. That's cool and all, but with interesting map features you can really make people adapt their game and adjust on the fly. For example, I remember an India domination game awhile ago where the map was divided into quarters by water. The only way off our starting quarter was through two city states surrounded by mountains. I had planned to just roll the whole map over with War Elephants, but it took time, happiness, and other resources to capture those CS and create a military path to the rest of the civs. I thought it was really cool that I had to come up with new ideas instead of following some generic formula to victory.

By the way, I know there have been some changes; when will GotM be released from now on?

That was my best gag
1st of the month

 

[beetle]

That was my best gag

That was a great map!

I only just tried the map editor for the first time last weekend. I cannot imagine how long it took you to set that up! So, I won’t ask for more like that because (1) it is too much work, and (2) I cannot think of how to use the map to really change things up.

I remember a IV gotm where one had to use pressure to flip a city in order to win. That map editor used ice to split the world. City flipping in V is not as much fun as it was in IV!

 

[Rogerio_AA]

My contribution to this topic of ideas:

Like as GOTM159, that started in the Advanced Age, other GOTM could start in some other Age (Middle Ages, maybe?), but with Pace Time in Marathon - and establish Domination as Victory Condition...